Talk to me about PPID/Cushing's...

They say some IR horses can be skinny. Foxy was that last year when he most likely was having problems with his IR. My guess it was much higher than his initial test at 37.4 and current test at 17.3. He had those swollen spots above his eyes which are supposed to be hollow last year. I remember looking at them and wondered about them. Just knew he wasn't feeling well and attributed it to his hives. Now they are slightly dents. He has the slight cresty neck where he looks like he atrophied in front of his withers. And then a small fat pad on top of his tail.

See Sidney didn't look like that......no fat pockets etc, just buffed (he always has been). I've since dropped weight because of the laminitis, but he's been moving great and I ride him....walk jog a couple times a week.

I have had two horses on Prascend, and in both cases they just ate the pill when set on top of their feed, even the guy who could rival an airport sniffer dog at detecting "things" in his feed and stand on the opposite side of the stall to his bucket. I think it works better if they aren't dissolved as the outer layer likely minimizes the taste, similar to many human meds. The pills have been wonderful compared to the compounded powder - I had to syringe that into sniffer-dog's mouth twice daily. And more stable too. Win win.

And this is when his IR was most likely higher, it did affect his feet then. If you compare the feet between the two shots. Skinny, but had more inflammation and even still had a cresty neck despite how skinny it got and the huge dent in it. You can see his eyes were puffy too.

And yes he is moving the best he has ever had in years on the IR diet. He didn't need joint supplements and most likely less injections, he needed just the right diet.

Jess has never in her entire life had supraorbital indentations (they've always been flat or barely concave) but I have noticed they seem more filled. I actually didn't realize that was even a symptom until reading about it after she tested postive, because most of the horses I've known with PPID never had that. I could definitely be fine picking now, but I do think she has gotten crestier and a rounder abdomen (she's always had an enormous barrel, but her back is less flat now so it's more pronounced), despite truly being at quite a good weight. It'll be interesting to see how many symptoms remain while on Prascend.

This was her on Sunday. I hate how her neck looks in this photo, and I don't think it is quite so cresty and heavily muscled on the underside IRL, but I also wonder if she has been struggling to move correctly for a while due to not feeling great plus her teeth being overdue I have no problem going bitless and doing some nice long and low work on trails for a while. She loved getting out Sunday and felt awesome, which was really nice. She actually had been getting a little sour about coming out, and the last couple weeks she has seemed much happier to get out and go for rides - I wonder if that is some of that depression subsiding from the meds. She's also overall not very fit because she was not doing anything for the last month or so up until a couple weeks ago, so ignore her lack of muscle (her color is also very hard to capture muscle tone in photographs, especially this clipped color )

Yeah, before I knew Foxy was IR I had taken him off of a high NSC grain with corn, Safe Choice Original, and saw a change in him right away when I changed to Triple Crown Senior. Then I made the mistake of putting him on the barn's oats, he had seemed to do well at my daughter's trainer's barn on oats, and he quit improving, didn't go backwards, but didn't improve anymore. So when I later found out the oats also had corn in it I took him off of it. Just in two days there was an obvious improvement in his movement. He was much more freer. And now that I am treating his IR adding magnesium, corn flax and chaste berry he is now a super chill horse. More like the horse I remember buying at age five.

He never really had the hollows either. When I first bought him at five.

Closest he ever had to hollows at age ten. The one barn he never had a corn grain. He was there two and a half years.

Ack! I don't know if it's the Prascend or the disease itself on top of this heat and bugs we have going on, but Miss Mare was stocking up behind, that seemed to resolve, then she got udder and midline/ventral edema, and now tonight her hock down on the R is all stocked up, L is mildly stocked up, and her udder and belly still have pitting edema It got a lot better with movement and seemed to be going away, but was worse again today (it was also a heat index of over 100° today and the poor thing was drenched in sweat standing in her stall in front of the fan...). I might start by eliminating the new supplement for a bit to see if that helps, then try splitting the Prascend dose into 2x/day which I've heard may help relieve side effects. I don't know if this is med related or disease related but she's not very happy at the moment. Some udder and ventral edema is not totally abnormal for her this time of year with heat and bugs, but it's definitely worse this year. If I cannot get it under control soon, the vet will definitely be involved.

She rolled all the way around the other day and scared herself because she hasn't done that in a long time

So googled "midline/ventral edema" and found one site mentioning it happens to metabolic horses. Foxy has had it for about a week and it has been going down. Then yesterday he got his hocks done and shockwave on his back, SI and deep flexor tendons that were sore from our mistake of taking his pads off when he got an abscess, and I saw today it was completely gone. Walked him today and he is back to the old Foxy again before that abscess started his downfall of not feeling great.

As another update, her pitting edema was getting really bad (ventral edema, udder edema, going down into her hind legs, then her one hock blew up with pitting edema). I started eliminating things from her diet, starting with the SmartPituitary pellets. By the next day she was significantly better, and today, three days later, she's nearly back to normal. I don't think it's anything against Smartpak at all, but am thinking the chaste tree berry does not agree with her. It was a very similar but much worse reaction to when she gets soy products. I emailed Smartpak, and being the awesome people they are, they will refund me and allow me to donate the open container to a rescue near me.

She was feeling better than she's felt in a while on our ride yesterday, and seems to be in very good spirits - willing to work and happy to get out and move again. I'm hoping that is the Prascend working already!

Yeah, Foxy can't eat their GI Pellets due to the corn in it. Accidentally at a show last February the barn I was with at a show gave him one of Winnie's, it says his name, but I gave them all to her when I found out it had corn in it. He broke out in a small amount hives around his large colon.

Smartpak is amazing and gave me a full refund and allowed me to donate the pellets to the mspca near me. Her edema is just about gone with just a tiny bit left around her udder and belly that wouldn't be noticeable if I wasn't looking for it.

I was at my feed store yesterday getting fly traps, and saw they had Elevate Vitamin E from KER (who I love), so I picked it up for Miss Mare as an antioxidant and considering she could probably use more of it since she gets very little grass and I know hay usually does not provide enough.

I rode in the ring again yesterday and she felt absolutely amazing... she started a little stiff but ended up working so forward and round and was very happy to strut her stuff. She's also shedding quite a bit right now, so I'm hoping that's her getting rid of coat (which is still on the thicker side esp around her middle, but not quite enough to be clip worthy) rather than starting on her winter coat She's definitely been intolerant to the heat and humidity, so I have not been pushing her much on those days and have been trying to ride later in the day which usually works out better for me anyways